Page 29 of Frostforge: Passage Two

Luna's shoulders slumped slightly."I couldn't stay long enough to search properly.There was a noise from the main forge — a night guard doing rounds, I think.I had to leave before I was caught."

"So we still don't know what she's up to," Thalia concluded, frustration evident in her voice.

"But now we know where to look," Kaine pointed out, his tactical mind already moving forward."If we want answers, someone needs to go back and investigate properly."

The three fell silent, each considering the implications.The distant sound of a page turning reminded Thalia they weren't completely alone, despite the library's effective acoustic isolation.

"This has to be connected to the weapon thefts," Thalia said finally."And the sabotaged materials for the golem projects."

Luna nodded vigorously."I thought the same thing.Especially after what happened with Einar's golem going berserk.

“I saw Senna collect a piece of the broken metal afterward,” Thalia supplied.“She was very...purposeful about it."The memory of that catastrophic failure — the screams, the wild, uncontrolled magic, the sense of wrongness she'd felt in the metal itself — sent a shiver down her spine.

"Lingering around the forge during a second-year class.Almost like she was expecting it to break, and checking to make sure it actually happened," Luna murmured.

Two mysteries,Thalia thought, her gaze shifting from Kaine’s translation notes to Luna’s face.One buried in the past… the other unfolding in the present.

The bowl of water beside her had finally developed a thin skin of ice across its surface — too late to count as success in her studies, but perfectly timed to mirror the chill of foreboding that had settled over their discoveries.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Thalia rounded the corner of the east corridor, her mind swimming with fragments of ancient symbols and the image of Senna hunched over stolen metal scraps.The morning light slanted through the high, narrow windows of Frostforge, casting long shadows across the stone floor and illuminating motes of dust that danced in the frigid air.She nearly missed the cluster of students ahead — a tight knot of tension forming in the otherwise empty passageway — but the sharp echo of raised voices snapped her attention forward.There, surrounded by a semicircle of Northern students, stood Roran, his shoulders squared and jaw set in that stubborn way she'd come to recognize as dangerous.

Her steps faltered.The scene before her crystallized with awful clarity: five Northern students — Nash Ironhall at their center — had Roran cornered against the wall.Nash's finger jabbed toward Roran's chest, his face flushed with the particular shade of righteous anger that seemed endemic to Northern blood when confronted with Southerners.

"Not again," Thalia muttered, quickening her pace.The confrontations had grown more frequent since the weapons thefts began, with Northern students increasingly bold in their accusations against Southerners — especially Roran, who was an easy target for suspicion.

She was still too far away to hear the exact words, but Nash's posture told her everything she needed to know.His broad frame leaned forward aggressively, one hand clenched at his side while the other gestured sharply at Roran.The Northern student's cronies flanked him like a honor guard — all second-years with the bulk and confidence that came from surviving their first year at Frostforge.

Thalia recognized Nash's lieutenant from her metallurgy class — a stocky girl with close-cropped blonde hair who had sneered when Thalia successfully animated her golem heart.Beside her stood Matthias and another girl from Nash’s clique, a young woman with long, flowing white hair.

"—all Isle rats are the same," Nash's voice carried down the corridor as Thalia drew closer."Sneaking around, stealing what isn't yours."

Roran's response was too low to hear, but the tight smile on his face spoke volumes.Thalia winced.That smile — a mask that couldn’t precede anything good.

Should I help?Thalia wondered, her pace slowing.The last time she'd defended Roran, he'd shrugged off her assistance coldly.The memory stung, sharper than she cared to admit.

Nash's voice cut through her hesitation."Everyone knows what you are.A spy.An infiltrator.Your kind aren't even human — just storm-touched vermin pretending to walk upright."

The corridor seemed to grow colder.The dehumanizing rhetoric was new, an escalation that made Thalia's skin prickle with alarm.The stolen weapons had transformed normal rivalry into something uglier, more dangerous.

Roran's knuckles whitened at his sides."Say that again."His voice was soft, barely audible, but it carried the static charge of an approaching storm.

Nash leaned in, his lips peeling back from his teeth."You heard me, Warden scum.You're not a person.You're a thing that should be put down like the —"

Thalia broke into a run."Stop!"she called, but her voice was lost in the sudden crack of Roran's fist connecting with Nash's jaw.

The Northern student staggered back, eyes wide with shock — then narrowed with fury.With a roar, he launched himself at Roran, tackling him against the wall with enough force to rattle the nearby torch brackets.The twins surged forward to grab Roran's arms, pinning them wide as Nash drove a fist into his stomach.

Roran grunted, doubling over, but managed to wrench one arm free.He drove his elbow into Matthias’s face with a sickening crack.Blood sprayed from the boy's nose, and he howled, stumbling backward.

"Stop it!"Thalia shouted, now close enough to be heard.No one seemed to notice her.The corridor had erupted into chaos, the air thick with grunts and the dull thuds of flesh striking flesh.

Nash’s blonde lieutenant lunged forward, driving her knee into Roran's side as Nash caught him with an uppercut that snapped his head back.Roran twisted, using the momentum to break free from Matthias’s grasp, and managed to land a solid punch to Nash's ribs before the other three swarmed him.

Thalia flung her bag aside and reached for her magic, feeling the metallic tang of the torch brackets and door hinges around her.Before she could channel a spell, a thunderous voice boomed down the corridor.

"ENOUGH!"

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